


Natural Insides

by Asterrious



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Eddie has depression, Fae AU, Suicidal Thoughts, here we go kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 00:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17213456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asterrious/pseuds/Asterrious
Summary: Eddie saves something from Drake's Lab without meaning to. It finds that it wants to stick around for a while.





	Natural Insides

**Author's Note:**

> Fae AU I've had in mind for a while. Rating is subject to change.

Breaking into Drake’s lab had been a pretty bad idea from the moment he had it. And Eddie isn’t stupid- he’d known full well it was a bad idea. The little part of his brain dedicated to self-preservation, the part that had just about shriveled up and died from disuse, had raised one last, feeble alarm to try and get him to turn from his course and maybe, for once in his miserable waste of a life, not do the stupid thing he wanted to do.

The larger part of his brain, the part of it that actually had control over his limbs, was too busy breaking and entering to listen to the other one. 

Technically it wasn’t breaking and entering, he supposed. He did have a keycard- he didn’t need to smash his way into any buildings here. There was no good old-fashioned wind-up and run at a door to try and break it down, like some of the times when he’d found himself in broken down factories or offices of the kind of people who never called the cops on a break-in.

He kind of missed it. His shoulder would be sore for days afterwards, sure, and one time he was pretty sure he’d dislocated it and relocated it in the span of 30 seconds, but it felt good. The wind-up and run felt like anticipation, felt like he was finally getting to the heart of the story. To the place where lives could be saved and people could be helped.

Eddie was an idealist, at heart. He’d lived his life expecting that saving the most people, doing the most good, would always reward him. It was naiveté, maybe. Stupidity probably. 

The winding corridors of Life Industries remind him of a hospital, where the threat of a cure and the panic of its absence have blended into a seamless, disconcerting silence. He could have kicked his brain for coming up with poetics now, even here. Even in this, the best he can do for a suicide attempt. At least some good will come out of it, he hopes.

No security guards melt out of the darkness to greet him. No scientist, long fallen asleep at their desk, is there to stutter awake and watch as he glides through the sterile halls. 

The reporter-turned-makeshift vigilante-turned-pathetic excuse for a human being stops in his tracks anyway, because the chambers around him are not how he expects them to be. 

Eddie expected screaming people strapped to hospital beds, veins pumped full of unknown liquids, or swirling blobs of alien goop in special lava lamp-like containment pods.

Three cages of iron stand around him, each illuminated by the harsh, bright lighting of fluorescents. They have huge swinging doors that are padlocked shut with rusted, cartoonishly-sized locks. It takes him a moment to register that in between the thick iron bars are sheets of Plexiglas, stopping up the thin gaps that someone tiny might have been able to squeeze through. 

And they’re all empty. Eddie stands, and spins, and squints, and wonders for a moment if he’s stumbled into Drake’s high tech, futuristic-crossed-with-medieval sex dungeon. He laughs at the image and then stuffs his hand furiously into his own mouth, silencing any more giggles that might try to slip out.

At long last he spots something he’d missed in the glint of the fluorescents against the Plexiglas. A carpet of something pale yellow and orange that blankets the floor inside the cage. Eddie creeps closer and sees that they’re leaves that have crumpled and fallen from a tree that’s nowhere to be found. They might have once been the brilliant colors of autumn, but its as though all the life has leeched from them, the vibrant hues faded and sallow. They’re distributed around the entirety of the cage, except for a thin line at every side where the linoleum of the floor shows through. Like whoever put the leaves there was very careful they didn’t touch the iron bars.

It’s beyond bizarre. The reporter stares and stares at the odd scene in the cage, but an explanation doesn’t magically pop into his head. It’s somehow more disconcerting to see these leaves than it would have been to see test subjects and experimental chambers. It feels like he’s being pranked. 

There’s a sound behind him, a rustling and then a loud ‘smack’. Eddie whirls around with his fists raised, ready to defend himself, heart pumping thick and loud in his ears.

A hand is pressing against the Plexiglas of the cage across from him. There’s a problem with the light over there, too many shadows where there should be none, and its keeping him from getting a clear look at the hand’s owner. Eddie feels a surge of adrenaline at the idea that he’s maybe found a victim- someone he can help. Someone he can save.

Racing over to the cage, he realizes that its not any easier to see its contents up close; there’s no smoke in the air, nothing that should be casting this much darkness inside. It’s like the light is simply… Refusing to hit this little portion of the lab. He can barely make out the outline of a person inside. 

“Hello?” He asks, pressing his hand against the glass to mirror theirs. “Are you okay?”

There’s a moment of silence. Then a voice with a dragging, rasp whisper asks:

“…Eddie?”

His mind stalls. It’s a familiar voice. One he didn’t think he’d be hearing again. 

Maria’s face appears from the shadows, looking at him wide-eyed and gaunt. She looks even more malnourished than the last time he saw her, hair stringy, cheeks hollow and sunken in. But she’s alive.

He’s suddenly terribly, horribly ashamed of how fast he gave up on her. Of how quickly he’d written her off when he realized she was gone from her street corner. Eddie shoves those feelings down to examine later, in favor of running for the fire extinguisher attached to the wall nearby.

“Hold on, I’m going to get you out of there,” He tells her, voice trembling. He can still do something good with his life. He can still help this woman he considers a friend.

It takes three strikes of the fire extinguisher against the rusted padlock for it to fall away with a deafening clang. Over it an alarm begins to wail, signaling to anyone around that something has gone wrong. There’ll be guards descending on the room soon. Eddie grabs the handle on the door at the same time as Maria spreads her hand on the Plexiglass and shoves it. The cage swings open and he’s tackled to the ground, the biggest hug he’s ever gotten in his life.

“I knew you’d come find me!” She says and he feels the statement as bitterness in the back of his throat. He hadn’t been intending to find her. He’d just been on another crusade, another mission to do right in the world without thinking of the consequences. Without thinking of the people around him.

God, he’s such a fuckup.

She’s holding onto him so tightly, thin body shaking. Eddie hugs her back as best as he can from his prone position. They need to go before someone finds them, but he can’t bring himself to push her away. Now that Maria’s out of the cage he’s trying to get a better look at her, but its like whatever was obscuring the light inside has followed her. She’s sort of indistinct, the colors of her hair and her face just on the other side of shadowy. The wrong hues for Maria, for humans, but only quite.

The hair raises on the back of his arms and neck. Somehow he gets the impression she knows, because she lifts her head to look at him and her hands are rushing to his neck and Maria smiles- with razor sharp teeth that don’t belong in a human being’s mouth and a white, pearlescent sheen to her eyes that he’s never seen before.

Eddie opens his mouth to try and scream but her grip on his throat is crushing and he can’t get enough air to even choke on it. His body thrashes underneath Maria’s smaller one, trying to get enough leverage to throw her off, loosen her grip, something, anything to save himself- but his mind is entranced by the way that shadow spills forth from her gaping maw. Curling little tendrils, searching the air, tasting his fear. Scenting. 

One brushes against his cheek.

Maria falls away from him. Instinct has him scrambling away from her limp form, hands coming up to grab at his throat, chest heaving with grateful, frantic breaths. His friend doesn’t move again. He’s afraid to go check on her. 

**_Eddie._** Something says in the back of his mind. He almost jumps right out of his skin, but he doesn’t get the chance to wonder if he’s going crazy because there’s the sound of boots hurrying towards him. They’re coming down the corridor towards him, from the direction he came, so he can’t go back that way.

Without thinking the reporter darts across the room, past the two empty cages. He’s moving fast enough that everything should be a blur, but somehow he still sees the pile of pale leaves on the ground in one and a shimmering puddle of water in the other. Its strange that the air here tastes like regret. 

Its also strange that he’s hurtling along the corridor faster than he’s ever run before. Eddie has been chased many times in his lifetime, and he is intimately familiar with the adrenaline boost your body gave you when you were running for your life. This didn’t feel like that at all. It takes no effort to moves his legs. There’s no familiar shortness of breath that signals he’s out of shape and really needs to start going to the gym more if he’s going to keep getting himself into these situations.

Its easy to dodge the guards that appear around corners or from doorways. They look at him in shock and sometimes throw themselves into his path, but Eddie finds it a simple task to dance out of the way or simply sidestep their slow, clumsy attempts to catch him. 

Somehow, in the middle of making fools out of all Drake’s guards, he finds himself outside again. It’s still dark out but the sun is peeking over the horizon, asking permission to come out for the day. There’s nowhere to go but into the forest, and his limbs seemingly rocket forward into the trees before he’s fully made the decision. 

Behind him Eddie hears the sound of engines and chances a glance. They’ve pulled out ATVs to follow him, soaring through the underbrush and around trees. The guards are gaining on him- despite the unearthly pace he’s running, he can’t outstrip the bikes. 

**_Cocksuckers!_ **

That wasn’t- That wasn’t him that thought that, was it? He certainly feels the insult in his heart, agrees with it without hesitation, but Eddie didn’t usually use cocksucker. Asshole, fucker, shithead… Those were more his speed.

Before he can further ponder the mystery of the magic curse word, he slows to a dead halt. Dirt skids up around his feet, cartoonish puffs of soil that indicate just how fast he was really going. 

“What the fuck,” Eddie asks himself. His heart is pounding with adrenaline and fear- but importantly not exhaustion. His muscles should have been screaming in protest, his lungs heaving and gasping for breath, but it was as if he’d taken a pleasant stroll through the woods. 

His body inclines towards the tree, and for a moment he thinks he’s about to collapse against it. Instead his arms circle the trunk as wide as he can, and Eddie’s giving this tree a nice hug. The bark is rough against his skin. Inclining his neck, he looks up into the branches and has only the faintest hint of warning before he jumps to grab on the lowest hanging one.

“Fuck no!” Eddie tells his body, trying to get his hands to let go of the branch, but they don’t listen to him. He’s scaling the side of this incredibly tall tree like he’s been climbing all his life, hands naturally falling onto the next branch, sneakers digging into the bark to give him footholds to jump. His mind fogs over with panic as the ground disappears below him and amusement bubbles in his stomach that is foreign to him. 

**_This is what you’re scared of?_ **

They’re at the highest point they can climb to, Eddie’s body clinging close to the trunk. Whatever’s been driving his limbs has suddenly seen fit to give him back control, and he’s locked up in terror. The ATVs are far gone, still searching for a figure sprinting through the trees, but Eddie can’t spare even a thought for them. 

“Get me down,” He tells the voice in his head, because the night has been so weird that he might as well try to reason with it. 

It sounds smug as it answers:

**_Pussy._ **

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear thoughts. If anyone wants to beta or would be interested in maybe doing so, let me know? I desperately need one.


End file.
